Finally

Wanted to get this post up before the festivities of a certain upcoming birthday commence tonight.....


  

Remember this post? 

Yes, I know it was A while ago, but this project was a pain or maybe it was me and my neuroticness.

Any ways, here’s the story: of a man named Brady  oh... sorry

First, fill holes and cracks

I used cardboard, gorilla glue and joint compound/spackle 

(gorilla glue worked great, yes it expands like 5 million times its size BUT it is sand-able! Just make sure that you have something to catch the dripping glue.)

For the cracks, I just squeezed a thin line of gorgilla glue over them, for the holes, I wedged small pieces of cardboard into the hole then squeezed a blob on top. Since the hole had gone all the way through, I did it on both sides.

Then I spackled around the dried glue, holes and cracks, in order to make the “patch” a bit thicker and stronger.

I did actually wait for this to dry prior to sanding

Sand until smooth

I used an electric sander and hand sanded using a few different grits.

NOTE: never never never ever sand spackle with an electric sander inside your house. It creates a massive, dusty, hard to clean mess.

Once smooth, paint.

I used a picture on my cell phone and my fabulous memory to purchase three Behr samples of the “right” red. Yeah they cannot color match pictures on a device.

Luckily one worked.

Make sure you paint smooth, since I was using latex paint, I had to wait in between each coat, (not used to that) the layers tend to peel up if a layer is still damp during another layer application.

Novel concept, I knew that peeling occurred from painting walls, but never thought it would translate to painting furniture. (I know, I know I’m a bright one)

*** this step occurred a few times, it was hard to get a flat finish using a paint brush. Being neurotic I painted, sanded, painted, sanded… etc and then the spackle got damp and I had to re-spackle a few spots.

It took a little time. 

(yes my definition of little (in this context) is rather exaggerated)

I knew I couldn't free hand the quatréfoil lattice pattern to be up to my standards, so I had to get creative. I took a crayon, peeled off the wrapper and rubbed it against a piece of paper pressed up against one of sides of the table.

Then I cut out one of the lines of the quatréfoil pattern. I did this a few times since my hands are a tad shaky w/ scissors AND because I was using super thin paper with overly sharp scissors.

Then I lined up my hand made stencil and traced it. I used a pencil thinking I could erase it if necessary. Well, pencil erasers do not erase well on latex paint.

Again I hap-hazard-ly did the tracing, then painted over my pencil lines with fabric paint. I stupidly did not look at the pattern until after I painted the entire un-patterned portion.

 FAIL!

Sand, paint over…. 

(its hard to sand fabric paint)

So, I adjusted my stencil placement and made sure each row lined up. 

Then I repainted with fabric paint. Along with fabric paint I used acrylic paint mixed with glue to have puffy, raised lines.

Since the design was not solid white, I mixed brown, cream, grey, black and beige with a dry brush to “antique” (that’s not the right word, but you get my point right?)

Its hard to be precise with dry brushing, I went back in with the red to clean up the edges around each quatrefoil.

The part above was explained in about four minutes, compiled it took about 36 hours to do. No it was not consecutive, I do have a life people kinda. It was tedious and since I’m a bit insane, it took longer than hoped.

I noticed there were streaks in the red parts of the table. It was not a solid red color. So, leaving the spots I fixed solid red was not an option in my book.

I tried paint, but black paint mixed with any color is hard. Makes colors murky and the finish looks dirty. Not to mention streaking it in straight fine lines through each quatréfoil? I’m not MC Escher people!!!

No idea where I got this idea, I took the bottom ends of a crayon and drew lines randomly throughout the entire side of the table. Since crayons are mainly complied of wax, I took an old wash cloth and rubbed each line to smear and blend within the red background. I did this with a brown, grey and black crayon. I was a tad impressed on how well it worked. I did it all over, on the top, sides, legs.

Since I bought this table damaged, there were knicks and chips surrounding the table.  I painted over each imperfection with the red and randomly around the entire table to have it blend. My color matching was good but not exact so I wanted it to blend in more than just the spots I fixed.

As hard as I tried I could not get the coloring right on the quatréfoil lattice pattern to match what was originally there. (Again, NO idea where this idea came from.) I took the side of the unwrapped crayon and rubbed it against every side of the table. Each part of the pattern was raised and uneven, so it picked up the color from the crayon pretty well. It looked a bit like the stencil I made earlier.

I was a bit excited how it well worked.

Once I finally had a covering I was pleased with, I had to make it permanent. I sprayed water based matte polyurethane over the entire table. Let it dry and sanded it using 200 grit sanding pads. I did 3 coats.

Normally I use clear spray paint or hair spray as a sealer, but since it was such a pain, I wanted to be extra sure I had a thick protective coating on it. (yes I tend to be a bit of a catastrophizer)

Its not perfect, but look at the side to side view of the side I did not touch and the side I fixed:

Another view

Not horrible, right?

How does she look? 

Here’s the numbers people:

$35 for Damaged table I got cheap thanks to a sweet smile and amplifying the multiple imperfections, $9 for the three Behr paint samples. $2.79 for gorilla glue, $ 10.86 for a can of Minwax water based matte polyurethane, $ 10.00 for the assumed total costs of the spackle, glue, sand paper, fabric paint, acrylic paint, printer ink & crayons…..stuff I already had

So, a little over sixty five dollars for awesome accent piece in my office........

SCORE